


Riposo

by BethNoir



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bill Haydon Before His Bullshit, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Fluff and Smut, Guilt, Italian Riviera, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Canon, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 00:35:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13513065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BethNoir/pseuds/BethNoir
Summary: In 1941, with Jim Prideaux as his stringer, Bill Haydon was laying down courier lines across southern Europe from the Balkans to Madrid.They also took a day off in Sanremo.





	Riposo

The door to the hillside villa flew open and hit the cushions of a turned over sofa. Bill Haydon hurried into the house to check for traps, wires, or worse. A photograph of Gramsci and books of Bakunin were enough to tell him the home had been abandoned for some time. He checked every room to be sure the home just off Strada San Bartolomeo would be safe.

Jim Prideaux found him in the kitchen, the room furtherest back in the house, with the door and window boarded up from the empty hillscape. He’d been scouting the perimeter for watchers, and Bill’s pale eyes could see more in the dark rooms, while Jim was better at looking outdoors. Jim took off his cap and ran his fingers through his dark continental hair, scratching an itch he’d left for too long.

“Not a soul in sight,” he said, looking in the same places Bill had, including a few others he hadn’t thought to check. “Best bet if there’s anyone, they’ll take us for partisans and leave us be.” Because Jim’s flawless Neapolitan accent would persuade them they were not two English boys doing reconnaissance. Bill was still tripping over his Rs, while Jim’s tongue was able to switch from Italian to Czech to Hungarian like it was a dial on the wireless.

Jim’s tongue….

Jim looked up just in time to see Bill take the last large step towards him to grab him and kiss him like they’d been separated for ten years instead of ten minutes. Bill squatted, picked Jim up under his seat, and dropped him on the heavy kitchen table. Jim wrapped his legs around Bill’s waist, like the girls Bill used to pull in jazz clubs before his tastes expanded. And all he wanted now was the taste of his sweet, shy Oxford flatmate.

Jim gasped into Bill’s mouth and Bill seized his bottom lip with his teeth, so hungry for his touch he thought he could consume him. He’d lost so much weight. Jim was only a few inches taller than Bill, but he still thought Jim was a beast of a man. Even slighter from traveling the whole of southern Europe and having to steal most of what they ate when enough of Italy was struggling, Jim was a mountain. His arms wrapped around Bill like a constrictor and crushed his ribs.

“Wotcher, Haydon,” Jim grinned. Bill growled with pleasure as he felt Jim's crotch grow harder, and finally having the gorgeous man in his arms.

“Thinking I should tear you apart limb from limb,” said Bill, his hands on Jim's waist, guiding his gentle thrusts against him.

“How long have we got?” Jim asked. Bill hesitated, not wanting to break the spell.

“Let me worry about that.” Bill murmured, kissing Jim with a laziness they could barely afford. Jim was hesitant they might have to fly at a moment’s notice, but there was an authority in the young patrician that made Jim melt at his touch.

The weeks on the road away from England’s nasty sneers should have been an excellent holiday, but they’d spent it working like dogs, with barely time for a wank, let alone a shag, usually sleeping at different hours or different places. Until they left Imperia a day early and left signs they’d been found out by the MVSN. Let the boys back home think they went into hiding, even if it was to have a day off in an abandoned home in the hills of Sanremo. To have Jim rocking against the hard prick in his trousers, the salty stink of his unwashed body filling his nostrils, and their faces crushed together in rough kisses. They’d resurface in Nice. No-one would miss them for very long. They needed this.

Bill fumbled for his belt buckle and Jim had his trousers undone and his thick cock in hand before Bill could get his pants down his hips. Jim stroked himself as he watched with ravenous eyes as Bill yanked Jim's trousers off, leaving him in his socks and boots.

“You can’t fuck me in a bed?” Jim asked. Bill slid a hand under Jim’s balls and rolled them around with an expertise to rival any of the professionals in Picadilly. Jim’s sass fell silent as the sensation of Bill softly rubbing his thumb through his hair made Jim spread his legs and let his mouth fall open from want. Bill’s fingers wandered backwards and finally produced a noise from him as he fingered Jim's hole.

“I want to fuck you where you can be as noisy as you like without the _nonnas_ fussing over who’s making you come so loud.” Bill kissed him. “Who's got you right where he wants you...who’s making you so. Fucking. Hard...” 

Bill gently pulled on Jim's balls, which made him gasp and grasp his shoulders from the shock. Bill grinned, and stepped back to lower his head, but Jim seized him by the arm and pulled him back up. The force of it knocked their pricks together and Bill shuddered from the heat and the sweat and the scratch of hair against flesh. Jim seized him by the neck.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Jim hissed in his ear. His ragged fingernails were like claws and Jim’s rough touch made Bill ache he was so hard. “You can do that anywhere but I want you inside me now.” He kissed Bill on his mouth, on his neck and suckled his ear as he whined, “I need this. I need you, Bill Haydon.”

Bill regretted not putting himself on the table from how his legs were shaking. He unbuttoned Jim’s shirt and kissed his broad, hot chest, the sweat percolating in the curling hair on his chest. He ran his hands over Jim’s nipples, down his ribs, and held him by the waist. Jim ran his fingers into his hair and rocked against him, moaning like Bill was already inside him. He’d been starved for weeks and felt as ravenous as a man before a feast. And Bill wanted to savor every moment that Jim wanted to devour. 

The tin of petroleum jelly from their first aid kit was in Bill’s pocket long before they set out that morning. They wouldn’t use a lot. They’d make do if something happened in the field. They were young. They were invincible.

Bill let Jim stroke himself as he unscrewed the tin and dabbed two fingers in the stuff, rubbing them together with the frenzy of a cricket’s legs, and Jim’s own legs wrapped around Bill’s waist.

“You need this, do you?” Bill breathed, leaning into Jim, holding his face as he kissed him and massaged his hole with his fingers slick and heavy from lubricant. “You need my prick inside you? Lovely gorgeous Jim…” Prideaux’s answer was to loll his head to the side, to stare at him with those brown eyes that were still warm as embers in the darkness of the room. And take Bill’s thumb in his mouth in such a lazy way that made him suckle and drool without breaking his gaze.

Bill couldn’t take Jim making him gasp like that, the competitiveness in him soared, and he pulled away to push Jim’s knees up to his chest. And took an agonizing amount of time to very slowly work a fingertip inside him. Jim gasped from the sensation and Bill let go of his legs. He loved the challenge and worked his finger further up, as Jim squeezed tight around him. Bill loved making him take it as Jim fell back on the table, his chest arched and heaving from want, as Bill put in his second finger, and made him moan in a way Bill had never heard before.

It was the sight of Jim with his legs open and his hands in his hair that Bill realized how much his lover looked like the Barberini Faun if he were flesh and blood instead of marble and stillness, and Bill groaned with need. He buried his mouth in the hair on Jim’s chest, biting his flesh, suckling on his nipples, and moaning with desperation, the salty sour taste of his body on Bill’s tongue. Jim pulled himself up with his legs around Bill’s hips and he cried out from how Bill’s fingers twisted inside him, but he needed his lips. Bill kissed him roughly, their teeth knocking together, and he felt Jim’s legs shake from exertion.

“I can’t fucking stand it you bloody Mephistopheles,” Jim gasped, “you brought this on me. You dragged me out here to leave me wanting you and watching you for weeks with nothing and-“

“Say it,” Bill growled. “I want to hear you say it.” He really wanted to watch as Jim’s mouth fell open and his eyes screwed up from desire like the strings on a marionette held by a puppeteer’s tired arm. As Bill slowly, slowly, dragged his fingers down, and back in, and down again, almost all the way out, nothing but the edge of his fingertips, only to shove them back in when he didn’t speak. But he made Jim howl and bite his lip when Bill curled his fingers and Jim begged in gasps.

“Bill. Please. Fuck me. Fuck me. Ple-“ Jim begged him; gasping, pleading, wheedling in his ear to tear him apart, and he was so dizzy from need he didn’t notice Bill had pulled his fingers out and shoved the tip of his thick, coated prick into him with such a force he felt like he’d been stabbed. Bill smothered Jim’s scream with his mouth, grabbed him roughly by the hips, and bit Jim's tongue so he couldn’t come up for air as he slowly, thrust deeper and deeper into him, rolling his hips into him in increments, making him breathe through his nose as Jim’s sobs were muffled and caught in Bill’s throat. 

If there was anyone out there, he hoped to God they thought the partisans were killing someone, or they were good Italian boys doing the fucking instead of them. Jim had never been this bold or this noisy and Bill loved it. He deserved it. He wanted Jim to have everything for being so good to him. He let Jim break off and gasp for air.

“Bill…Bill, turn me over.” He tried to shift his position, but Bill grabbed him round his waist to stop him, and held his chin in one hand. He ran the same thumb Jim had sucked on back into his mouth and pressed it open. Made him keep it open.

“No,” he said, running the finger along Jim’s teeth. “I’m going to watch you come.” And he pulled back and thrust into Jim to make his point, staring into his awestruck eyes to show him who was in charge. “I want to see the look in your eyes when you know it’s happening. When you feel it happening. I want you to know I’m doing this to you and you’re coming for me. You’re mine, Jim Prideaux.” 

He approached Jim at the party in Oxford. He had Jim before any of his peers and better than any of the boys in Prague or Strasbourg. He scouted Jim for the Circus. And he had Jim in his hands, falling to pieces, because Jim would go to the ends of the earth if Bill asked him, and Bill wanted him to know his love would not go unnoticed. He owned him. And Bill almost came first as Jim looked at him with such adoration he knew he’d never find this again in this life or any other.

The sweat on Jim’s body dripped through the thick dark hair on his Adonis belt as Bill fucked him harder and faster. Jim clenched his eyes and teeth like it hurt when he was only trying not to scream it felt so good to have Bill inside him.

Bill hooked Jim’s legs over his arms so he could pull his hips into him, slamming into him as hard as he pleased. Jim fell back on the table and pushed against the wall behind him. Jim’s hard prick was red and drooling on his belly and Bill was going to make him come untouched.

“Make a fucking racket for me, Jim. There’s no-one here to hear you but me. Do it for me.” Jim’s chest heaved and the only sound in the room was Bill’s balls slapping against his arse and Jim’s escalating moans as Bill’s demands turned into pleads. Do it. Please. Please…

And Jim’s cry broke out like a thunderclap as he came all over his chest, his gasps and moans after it like rolling thunder. He gasped for air as his body shook from the sensation that ripped through him; the evidence of his affection running down his ribs and into the crevices of his abdomen. As his prick gasped out the last of it, Bill slowed down. Jim lay limp on the table, his head turned towards the wall, staring blankly like he’d just been shot.

But then he turned to watch him. Jim was exhausted, covered in sweat and grime and come, and all he could do was drink in the sight of Bill staring at him, his eyes full of love and affection for the man who’d pulled him away from the wall at a crowded party and all this time made sure he would not go through this life unnoticed. If Jim was going to hide in the shadows, Bill would be there with him and they would make use of that uncharted land and all its secrets to make the world around them a better place. 

And then he smiled.

A red hot spike ran through Bill and he came with a force that made him cry out like he hadn’t done in years. Bill gasped against Jim's knee, letting himself feel every sensation from his prick to his fingertips, shaking involuntarily from every ripple of pleasure, until he was still, and finally discomfort followed. He slid out of Jim, put his arms around him, and fell on Jim’s sticky chest, his trousers still manacled around his ankles. He felt the rise and fall of his lungs, and the trickle of sweat and come as it slithered down their legs. The sticky patches clung to Bill’s face, between the scruff of days unshaved.

Bill put his hands around Jim to feel how thin he’d gotten, and kissed the streams of his emission between his ribs. He wanted to taste it; to fill his senses and memory until the next time he could have Jim like this. Their time together was an ocean of affection after years of loneliness.

Of all things to cross his mind, he’d thought how Jim would look if he were shot, but wasn’t that the risk they were running this whole time? If they fell into the hands of the enemy, if the reports coming from resistance groups were true, then maybe they should have this day for themselves in case there would never be another.

He felt Jim’s hands ease into his hair, and gently comb his curls.

“I wonder if anyone heard us.”

The morning only brought the song of birds, the rustle of grass, and the smell of the sea air. It was just as peaceful as when they’d arrived the night before and without even a hint there was a war going on. All of Liguria was at Mass, but Bill and Jim slept like true heretics, having finally made their way upstairs to the bedroom. After a desperately needed bath, of course.

Bill was the first one up for once, but he let Jim sleep in. It was a vision seeing his legs and back exposed to the spring air, all long and lean with muscles like a thoroughbred and warming in the sun. His skin unmarked from his wartime duties, and no sign of his regular violation by Bill Haydon. 

Bill wandered into the sitting room to give the Bakunin a try. The anarchists never made much sense to him, but there were a few pamphlets from Togliatti that got his attention. It wasn’t all bad. It was better when Jim woke up, all smiles and laziness, as he rolled over and let the linen fall away from his naked body.

Bill crawled up the bed and kissed Jim’s toes, his feet, ran his nose through the hair on his legs, laving his tongue along his muscles and his teeth along his shins as Jim squirmed and his prick twitched from interest, and Bill finally was allowed to take Jim in his mouth, and take his time.

They made love again, this time less frenzied, more luxurious of the time they stole, savoring the taste of their tongues and the form of their bodies. Like the home they stole into was their own and this was only a regular Sunday in their lives together.

They sat in the window overlooking Sanremo as they ate what rations they could spare from Bill’s kit, and whatever Jim scrounged up in the surrounding area. It wasn’t France, but it was the same sapphire blue sea Jim had told him about. He’d shared the memory when they were still in bed at Oxford, of how it was one of the few good parts of childhood, when his parents were still dragging him around Europe. Bill had made up his mind then and there to bring him back for another good memory, even if it took a Second World War to bring him back.

After they ate, they dressed and made the trek down the hill, daring to disguise themselves in the crowd as simple proletariat. The thick grass on the hills grew into stone walls and cramped apartment buildings as they joined the crowds leaving La Chiesa Russa Ortodossa to walk along the promenade, chattering in French about where to find Nobel's house. 

They found the one cafe open for lunch, and they took coffee in the corner as “Giamo” passionately espoused the virtues of Il Duce to “Gugghiermo”, and anyone who might have been eavesdropping. Bill nodded and let his companion ramble, occasionally adding “ _certo_ ” or “ _sí, certo_ ” for the eavesdroppers, with an occasional “ _io capisco_ ”. The rest of his vocabulary was coated with an unfortunate posh accent, so he let Jim do the talking.

Jim was so confident in his abilities, he even persuaded the proprietor of a small hotel to let them a room at a discounted rate for a riposo. Their train was late and their girlfriends were back in Pavia. They needed their rest before they returned to their sweethearts. As Jim spun a terrific story for him, Bill leaned on a post box to drink up the sight of a blonde with slender legs as she locked up her bicycle. She looked like Betty Bronson, a childhood crush from when he snuck into the cinema to see Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Betty’s sleepy-eyed Virgin Mary lit a spark in his chest, but Ramon Navarro’s Ben-Hur, near naked and defiant on the war galley had unleashed an inferno.

“ _E scordatevi dei vostri tesori!_ ” The proprietor laughed. “ _Il suo amico sa che Sanremo ha le migliori donne del mondo._ ” Bill’s wandering eye gave credence to Jim’s story, and a familiar resigned smile made Bill feel sick with guilt.

The room had two single beds and faced the Mediterranean. As Jim quietly undid his shoelaces, Bill realized how much Jim had been talking and he had been listening in a reversal of roles. Is this what Jim could be when he was out of Bill’s environment and free of obligation to English morals? They had a day to wander through this mirage on the Riviera, like peace was through the continent and Liguria still under the free rule of Napoleon and there was possibility. But the wires would be set, the war would end, and they would be back under the grey skies of England with Bill peacocking around the Circus, with Jim content to watch. This lively, passionate Jim would close back up into a calyx of shyness and work to stay safe from a thousand prying eyes looking for weakness. A kernel of regret sprouted in Bill’s chest. It wasn’t the first time he felt Jim deserved better. It wouldn’t be the last.

“All right?” Bill blinked, broken from his trance, as Jim addressed him with his familiar, shy cadence. The guilt that swept through him felt like lust, and he didn’t like that he couldn’t tell the difference. He also didn’t like the feeling that this would become a habit.

Bill crossed the room, took Jim’s face in his hands, and kissed him with reverence. He pulled back to look into his eyes, relieved to see his shyness retreat and comfort take its place. There was that smile.

“You are a gift, Jim Prideaux,” Bill murmured, needing to hear the confirmation as much as Jim. And see the look in his eyes to know he was treasured too.

The streets were still empty and the sun blazed overhead when they departed. They left both beds rumpled as evidence they had not taken their riposo with Bill wrapped around Jim in his narrow bed, and the windows boldly open to the sea for three peaceful hours. 

On the empty street of Corso degli Inglesi with all potential witnesses still asleep, Jim pushed Bill against a wall, and kissed him with a deep and longing passion. An Oxford kiss, as Bill would call them, when they’d steal moments in public, with no-one around to witness, like it was the only kiss they’d ever have.

At sundown, they set out for Monaco, crossing the border into France through the hills of Villatella. They would alert their superiors they were alive, just delayed, and they would establish a network with whoever was left.

Bill brought the Togliatti with him. It stayed on the bottom of his kit. He kept the taste of Jim on his lips as often as he could manage. It made for a better memory.

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I know, Sanremo in 1941 was doing all right. I think most of the fighting was in Italy’s African colonies at that time, but if I’ve missed some massive piece of WWII history, that’s on me. If you’ll forgive (or correct) my atrocious Italian grammar, I’d appreciate it. If you ever get a chance to go to Sanremo, do it. It's absolutely beautiful.
> 
> 1\. "Forget about your sweethearts!"  
> 2\. “Your friend knows Sanremo has the best women in the world.”


End file.
